This was the second of three problems we have had with this nightmare car. The third is detailed under suspension problems, which happened a mere two weeks after this problem. With this problem, my wife called me at 11:30pm on the way home from a friend's house on the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway (the worst road on earth to break down on) and said the temp gauge was in the red. I asked her if it was smoking and she said no so I said to turn on the Heater, which will help dissipate some of the heat, and try and make it home. She made it home, and I checked it out in the morning, and the thermostat housing had cracked and all of the coolant had dumped out of the car. I added coolant, barely made it to the mechanic, and 3/4 of the coolant had dumped out of the car again. Turns out the thermostat housing is el-cheapo plastic. If I wanted a lego car I would have built one myself for a lot less money. This car is literally the worst car I've owned in my life. The only worse car I've heard of was the Ford Aspire my wife had back in college, which spent more time in the shop than on the road. So long Ford, I won't be recommending you to anyone!

First off, who makes a thermostat housing out of a plastic that breaks down in the presence of heat and coolant? (A: Ford)

This was actually significantly more expensive than just the cost of the part, because it was originally thought to be the heater core, or Core Of Evil (tm), since the windows would fog up when you turned on the heater, and the coolant was dripping from the hose were it went into the fire wall. That was a royal PITA, and would have cost $875 at the dealer. The entire interior from the center console to the firewall has to be removed to get the Core Of Evil (tm) out. It took me a week to do it myself.

What was the actual problem was the the crappy plastic thermostat housing had disintegrated. It was about $85 for the part, and only took me about a half hour to install. The dealer would have charged a lot more.